What's your #editor / #IDE of choice, and why is it so? Do you use that for all tasks and #programming languages, or do you switch between editors depending on what you're working on?
I mostly use #IntelliJ / #Goland for large projects, and #VSCode for simpler ones. But tbh, I find myself increasingly using VS Code even for projects where I'd previously would reach for IntelliJ. And their poor story around language server integrations makes them feel less relevant today than they used to be.
@anderseknert I'm an Emacs user for general tasks, an XCode user for Objective-C, though I keep telling myself I need to get Objective-C completions up and running in Emacs so I can just live in my favorite space.
(And, IMHO, code completion is a crutch for shitty API design, but MacOS, whatcha gonna do?)
I've tried VSCode, but it lacks so much that I think of as core editor functionality that I can't live there, it's just another IDE for me.
@danlyke Thanks for sharing, Dan! What kind of projects do you maintain in Objective-C? Despite havnig used Macs for the past decade, I know almost nothing about Mac-specific development tools or processes. Just never had a need to.
I'd also love to hear an example of core functionality you found missing in VS Code! Not like I doubt you, just here to learn 🙂
@anderseknert I usually end up using VS Code, as it has by far the best experience for #fsharp using the #Ionide plugin. I keep trying to do more in Rider, which also has some great features, but I always end up missing Ionide. I end up using VS Code for most other things too. The ease of creating custom workspaces with different settings and plugins, and the integrated terminal help a lot. I recently got a pretty good workflow going for doing presentation slides in it using Pandoc.
@somelinguist Awesome! Thanks for sharing. I've never set up custom workspaces, but perhaps I should look into that. Could you provide me an example of when that's useful?
@luciano Man, I really wish emacs had stuck with me. That would have saved me both money and time over the years 😄 But I always preferred the more GUI-centered editors better for some reason.
@anderseknert i’m rather curious about the replys. I try to fit everything into IDE visual studio community (failing) because learning new coding environments exhaust me and i just want to create.
@theatredesvarietes Yeah, I 100% hear you on the cost of switching. I know many who are still using Eclipse just because that's what they learnt 20 years ago and moving to something else at this point would make them unproductive for months, lol.
@anderseknert I've started using VSCodium for just about everything where I'm not constrained to a console. In consoles I use plain vim.
What I like about VS Code / VSCodium is the ad-hoc workspace support and integrated terminal. I tend not to save my workspaces to a file, but I use them frequently when working on something.
@bdube Thanks! And agreed about workspaces. What does saving a workspace to file mean? Or rather, what does it give you? I don't think I've done that, so maybe I'm missing out on something :)
@anderseknert I use Sublime Text + Sublime Clojure, since most of my work is in Clojure and it’s such a straightforward language I’ve never really seen in the value in a “real” IDE. I also use Sublime for all other text editing needs (shell scripts, markdown, etc.).
On the odd occasions I have to head down the Java mines, I reach for IntelliJ, though I usually find myself fighting it more than enjoying it tbh.
@pmonks That's awesome! I'm fairly comfortable around Clojure, with it being my hobbyist language of choice, but I don't think I was aware of Sublime Clojure. Does it provide a nice REPL-integration like Cursive and Calva?
I mostly use Cursive for Clojure coding for projects where I need to work with Java interop. VS Code and Calva for anything else (which is mostly #babashka these days). It's been too long since I had much time for that though :/
@anderseknert It does, but I don’t use it myself. I’m fine with “copy & paste” into a REPL running in a terminal window and/or (load-file "scratch.clj") for that use case. #YesImANeanderthal
@pmonks Hah! I'm like the opposite of that — I never really enjoyed using the REPL from the terminal. That's almost certainly a weakness of mine though, and not the REPL / terminal.
I am mostly a python and shell guy, so it is vim for shell and PyCharm (+vim plugin) for everything else.
Tried VSCode and VSCodium and I am "meh". Never worked for me.
I increasingly dislike JetBrains licensing terms, so one of my long term project (project number 8879 in fact) is switching to emacs for good and leaving all this behind.
@ParadeGrotesque I have made many half-hearted attempts to get proficient with Vim or Emacs, but while I can use them, they never stuck with me like the more "graphical" editors did. I've always admired people who are skilled with those though.
If you're good with Vim, why are you planning to switch to emacs? I'm sure you have good reasons, I'm just curious :)
You can have an IDE in vim, but it requires much configuration and gnashing of teeth. Vim itself is amazing. Its extensions? Not so much.
And yes, emacs is the ultimate extensible editor, and there is something really attractive in having an infinitely configurable tool at your disposal.
It also comes from watching some advanced emacs user using it for, well absolutely everything from coding to documenting, reading/sending email, and so on and so forth.
@anderseknert No. Visual Studio, for instance, is Windows only, although I guess that is really more #IDE than just editor.
I would call VS Code an IDE as well, but there are those that claim it doesn't have all the functionality of one.
And XCode is macOS only.
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